15/9/2023

3 years since mum died. 1 week since Ian died. 1 month since I spoke about it on a podcast. Grief is a funny fucker. It's like you went to go watch your worst nightmares at the IMAX and then have to pretend everythings fine afterwards, only you signed a contract to listen to the soundtrack on repeat on the tiniest little headphones that are sellotaped to your ears. and the one person you need to talk it through with doesn’t exist.

Some people like to phone their dead friends and relatives, just to hear their voicemail one more time. No fucking way. I played her voice notes a couple of times but im never going to forget the sound of her.

I feel sometimes like I am not doing her so proud, I still sit with my addictions, I dont know how wise my behaviour has been really or if I have made the changes I always thought I would have by now. the changes I promised myself id make in the wake of her passing. I didn’t drink for maybe a year, I didn’t take the real naughty drugs for a little bit longer than that.

its the worst because after a while, everything does just kind of, slip back into rhythm, the same habitual rhythms we were all doing, only its different now. I do think about her dead body. not so often anymore.

its now so much less about her, so sadly so much less about her - and now about how I deal with it. It’s like some of my peers will never know how aware I am that everything has the potential to crumble into dust. I feel older. for sure.

I feel like maybe I am too serious, or too cold, or too prepared to leave everything behind. A friend told me last week that her therapy introduced the idea of .. instead of burning bridges, just choose not to walk over them .. a mind boggling notion for a woman as addicted to arguments as I am nicotine.

I love to debate, to argue. I got that from my mother. And she was so strong with such brilliant friends around her. Not so much inner circle exclusivity as just having a fucking standard. There are so many let downs in this world, unjust and illogical and sometimes just cruel letdowns. I disagree with my peers a lot. We’ve come from very different places, and I love it. we learn eachother every time we meet and the friends I have I am genuinely so excited to know them. Sometimes a loss feels like a loss, but maybe its just shifted weight, maybe its freed up your ankles from some twines.

every one of us dies. one by one sometimes more at a time - the way we live on is through our behaviours, our instincts and our attitudes. Mine is chaos. but am getting there. maybe. sometimes it feels like it anyways.